


i want to hold your hand

by gingerbread man (xphantomhive)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: 60stuck, A few mentions of having sex but nothing major, Hideous sixties fashion, I don't like Joan Baez so my bitterness about her was in this, John doesn't like The Beatles because he is insane, Kissing, M/M, References to Woodstock, Sorry if you like her, The Beatles - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 16:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5935620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xphantomhive/pseuds/gingerbread%20man
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you meet Dave Strider for the first time, he's wearing a hideous white suit with red plaid that would make Rose cry herself to sleep for months.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i want to hold your hand

It’s six in the morning when you climb into Rose’s bed and start complaining to her, even though you aren’t entirely sure if she’s awake yet or not. You whine out, “Why do I have to come with you and Jade to this concert? Why can’t you just go alone? I don’t _want_ to see a boyband concert with my best friend and my sister, it’s not something I have ever wanted to do in this lifetime and it’s something I won’t want to do in the next,” all in one breath, and she turns to face you.

“The Beatles are not a boyband,” she snaps, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. “Their music is incredible. You’ll have fun. Besides, you’re the only one of us who has the ability to drive a car, and my mom is a bitter drunk who I cannot stand to be around for more than two minutes.”

You throw an arm over your eyes dramatically, and Rose huffs from next to you. “Dude, they are so totally a boyband. You’re just saying they aren’t because you like their music and you’re supposed to be all cool and shit. Can’t we go see The Who, or something? You like The Who, right? Jade likes them too. Let’s go see The Who instead.”

The bed dips and the covers next to you rustle, and when you uncover your eyes Rose is slipping out of her nightshirt and into an ugly floral dress she stole from her mother that you’ve told her many times makes her look like the textbook definition of a hippie. “That’s gross,” you say, rolling over so your back is facing her. “So we’re gonna go see The Who instead?”

“God, would you shut up about The Who,” she responds finally, and when you flip back toward her she’s pulling on a pair of blue flats you got her for Christmas last year. “No, we are going to see The Beatles, and that is final. I saved up for months to buy the tickets, and even if you get there as soon as tickets are on sale it’s hardly possible to get a good seat. I managed to get seats in the third row. We’re going, come hell or high-water.”

You groan, burying your face in her pillow. It smells like lavender and that expensive perfume Jade bought her, and you snuggle closer to it because it’s warm. “Get up, would you?” She asks, but you know it was more a rhetorical question because she shoves you out of the bed and onto the floor. You keep your eyes shut for a few seconds after you hit the ground and try to sound like you’re in pain, even though the drop hadn’t been very far and it didn’t hurt that bad. “Look, Jade bought you a new shirt for this and everything, and it was a pain in the ass to find it in the colors that she managed. So get up and put it on, or you’ll break your poor sister’s heart.”

When you open your eyes, Rose is standing over you with a blue and yellow striped long-sleeved shirt in her hands. It’s absolutely hideous and you won’t ever wear it after today, but you’ll put it on so that you don’t upset Jade. You pull yourself up from the ground and take it from her, and then you dig around in your dresser for a pair of jeans. You get dressed in front of Rose because you could really care less if she saw you in your underwear, and by the time you’ve started brushing your hair she’s tapping her foot impatiently.

“Hold on, jeez,” you say, and she crosses from the doorway to where you are at the mirror to hit you upside the head with a newspaper article about Woodstock. “Where did you even get that? Aren’t The Beatles performing at Woodstock? Why don’t you go to that.”

She flicks you in the head this time and sets the article down on the vanity. “They aren’t going to be performing at Woodstock, and if they were, I’d make you come along for that too. Plenty of drugs for you to get high on and pretend you’re somewhere else; you would be perfectly fine. You’ll be perfectly fine at this concert, too. You’ll like The Beatles, I promise.”

“Yeah, okay. Jade told me I’d like Joan Baez.”

“That’s different. No one likes Joan Baez aside from Jade. Now hurry up, or we’re going to be late to the concert and I’ll have to fight my way through a crowd of teenage girls using you as my human shield. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“That’s not a funny joke,” you tell her pointedly, rifling through the top drawer in Rose’s desk to find your cassette tape. She grabs your hand before you can even start looking for it, and you glare at her over your shoulder. “What now?”

“First off, it wasn’t a joke. I plan on using you to fight my way through hormonal teenage girls,” she starts, hand still clamped tightly around your wrist. “Secondly, we will be listening to The Beatles the entire way to the concert, and there isn’t anything you can do to change that. Hurry up and finish whatever else you need to get done before your sister becomes impatient.”

You scoff. “Jade is never not impatient. I’m done getting ready, I just wanted my damn cassette, but _apparently_ I have to listen to The Beatles forcibly. This is torture, you know that? I’m alerting the authorities. An eighteen year old female who can’t drive forced me to listen to The Beatles in my own car after she forced me to drive and told me she’d kill me if I stopped.”

“Shut up, John. You’re beginning to sound like my brother.”

You flip her off even though you aren’t really sure if that’s an insult or a compliment, because you’ve never met her brother and you don’t know how he acts. You and Rose are shoving each other the entire way out the door, and once you make it outside (after checking twice to make sure the door is locked) Jade throws her hands up from where she is, leaned up against your car, and shouts, “Finally! Which one of you was taking so long?”

You unlock each of the car doors and climb into the front. Rose clicks her lock once she’s inside, then does her seatbelt, but Jade does neither. “John. He was being a prissy little princess about seeing The Beatles with us, once again.”

“Aww, John!” She whines, leaning over the front seat and draping her arms over your shoulders. Before you can tell her not to, Rose is shoving her cassette into your player and a Beatles song starts up. You glare at her with the fire of a thousands suns. “The Beatles are great! I think if you really listened to them, you’d like them. Don’t you think he’d like them, Rose?”

“Certainly,” she responds, the ghost of a smile on her lips. “However, like most, he’s stuck with the firm belief that they are a boyband and that means he cannot listen to him, for it may threaten his masculinity. Isn’t that right, John?”

“Fuck you,” you reply as you hang a sharp right. Jade grips your shoulders tightly, sharp fingernails digging into your neck. You’re almost afraid she gave you a cut. “I surrendered my masculinity the first time I took a cock up the ass. I am _so_ the girl in the relationship.”

You see Jade’s nose crinkle in your rear-view. “Too much information. Still your sister. Never needed to know if you were on top or bottom. I’m going to cry myself to sleep tonight, you have scarred me for life. How does that make you feel?”

“Not much different,” you tell her, hanging a left turn this time. She still grips your shoulders like she’ll go flying out of the car if she doesn’t. “I still feel like I’m in a car with my best friend and my sister, being forced to see The Beatles live even though I don’t want to.”

Jade and Rose are both opening their mouths to protest, or maybe argue, but you’re already pulling up to the stadium and paying for a parking spot close to the arena. Jade is bouncing in her seat, and for the first time you notice that she’s wearing a Beatles shirt. “Where did you get that thing?” You ask her, because you don’t remember her owning it before now.

She grins smugly. “I bet Jane fifty bucks that she couldn’t cook a cake in twenty minutes. She thought she could. Obviously she could not.”

“You’re kind of an asshole,” you say to her, pulling into your parking space. You see her shrug in your mirror, and you twist the key to turn the car off and swing your door open. “So, here we are, The Beatles concert. Let’s go home while we still can.”

Jade whaps you upside the head, and Rose starts pushing you. When you ask her what she’s doing, she tells you practicing to shove you through a crowd of screaming girls so that she can be the first person into the stadium. When you tell her not to do that and try to slip out of her grasp, Jade starts helping, and then you’re being shoved through a crowd of hormonal teenage girls (and a few guys) who are shouting complaints after you.

Though, you do make it to the front of the line. “Hell yeah!” Jade cheers, swinging her fist up into the air and jumping up and down like an excited kid in a toy store. You tell her to calm down while Rose tries to excite her more, and it leaves her confused and partially happy and calm. She stops talking and starts running when the gates open, bypassing right through security.

“We’re supposed to frisk every guest, ma’am.” You hear a guard telling Rose, but you’re too busy rushing to catch Jade to stop and help her. Rose doesn’t get inside the building for another few minutes, and by that point it’s already starting to fill up with people.

“Gimme fifty,” Jade tells you, holding her hand out and wiggling her fingers. “I want to buy myself one of those shirts with all the cities they’re performing in and on what dates because those shirts are really cool. You owe me.”

“What? How? You’re the one who dragged me here, I don’t even want to be here. I’d rather be at home watching Bewitched.”

Rose rolls her eyes at you and forks over the cash. “You’re the most feminine male I’ve ever met, John. Bewitched, really? You could’ve picked any television show, from The Twilight Zone to The Andy Griffith show, and you chose Bewitched.”

“Shut your mouth Rose, Bewitched is an amazing show.”

She rolls her eyes at you again but doesn’t say anything else, and when Jade comes back with a bag Rose tells you she’s going to go buy herself one of those shirts, too. “We can be twins!” Jade shouts excitedly, swinging the bag around above her head. Rose smiles softly. You think they should just kiss and get it over with already.

“Oh no,” Jade moans once Rose is gone, slumping against the wall. “I think TV Guide said that Psycho was going to be on tonight. I’m going to miss Psycho! What am I gonna do?”

“Watch it again some other time because it’s on constantly? Psycho is a really popular movie, it isn’t like it’s never going to be on again.”

Jade keeps going after that, but you tune her out when she starts talking about how Alfred Hitchcock is the best director ever and it’s simply a _travesty_ that she’s missing one of his best movies tonight. When Rose comes back, she raises and eyebrow and motions to Jade with a quick head move, and you mouth, “Alfred Hitchcock.” Because you all live together and you know Jade all-too well, she only nods and doesn’t ask anything else.

You’re to your seats well before the concert starts, and the entire hour beforehand that you have to wait Jade is bouncing up and down in her seat. And when you say the entire hour, you aren’t just over-exaggerating because you’re annoyed; she seriously does it for the _entire_ hour. Rose doesn’t seem irked by it, but you know you are.

The concert only starts once all of the seats are full, and as soon as The Beatles walk onto the stage girls are screaming and trying to climb over your head to get closer. You sit through four songs of hair-pulling and thirteen-year-olds throwing themselves over you so they can get closer before you decide you’ve had enough and climb over the _entire row_ of people just so you can get the hell _out_ of there. The guard by the door gives you an odd look as you’re leaving, as if he can’t believe you’re getting up during a Beatles concert, but you really don’t care.

Once you’re finally out of the main arena, you notice it’s pretty empty. You guess it’s because no one will even go to the bathroom during a Beatles concert, and if they have to pee they’ll just do it in their pants because the beatles are a lot more important than relieving their bladders in a proper bathroom. You close your eyes and slump against the wall, wishing you were at home watching Bewitched (shut up Rose, Bewitched is a great show) and drinking hot chocolate.

“Dude, what the fuck are you doing?” Someone asks, and you’re easy to startle so you jump up with your hand over your heart, which is trying to beat out of your chest. The person you see when you open your eyes is a guy, maybe around your age but at least ten inches taller than you (you’re only five feet tall, shut _up_ Rose, you’re just a late bloomer) and he looks to be around five-ten, maybe six feet, so you definitely aren’t wrong. He’s wearing sunglasses even though he’s inside and it’s dark, a pair of hideous white pants with red plaid, and a white shirt with a jacket over it that matches the pants. “Sorry, didn’t know you had a hummingbird heart.”

“I don’t have a fucking hummingbird heart,” you mutter spitefully, even though you totally do and if Jade or Rose were here they’d be laughing at the fact that you even tried to deny it. “I’m fine. Your outfit is ugly and it’s hurting my eyes.”

He raises a pale blonde eyebrow, the same color as his hair. “Yeah, you sure seem alright.”

You notice he has a bunch of freckles under his eyes and over the bridge of his nose, and he’s pale, and his hair is nice, and you think he’s kind of cute aside from the terrible outfit he has on that would probably make Rose start crying on the spot. “Because I am. So, alright. My name is John Egbert, what’s yours?” You spit all at once, because now you’re nervous since this guy in the terrible plaid outfit is actually kinda sorta cute.

“Dave Strider,” he responds. “Why the fuck are you out here instead of in there, listening to The Beatles? They’re fuckin’ amazing, dude. You’re missing out.”

You cross your arms over your chest. “Well I don’t really like them.”

“Okay, no, what,” he’s shaking his head at you. “No way. No, way. How can you not like The Beatles? Besides, how am I supposed to pick you up by singing “I Want to Hold Your Hand” if you don’t even like The Beatles? Because that’s what I was gonna do, by the way. I was going to sing you that song and sweep you off your feet, make you swoon and drop your panties right on the spot. You were gonna fall so hard for me, love at first sight shit, but now it’s ruined. How does that make you feel, John Egbert?”

You shrug. “Pretty alright, I guess. Maybe I didn’t want you to make me drop my panties.”

“Hell no, I am Dave Strider and all the ladies want to drop their panties for me,” he says, and you open your mouth to tell him that you’re a guy and he cuts you off with a palm shoved against your mouth. You lick his hand and he wipes it off on his pants like it’s nothing. “And the occasional guy, but it depends if _I_ like the guy. And boy lemme tell you, I sure like you. Like, damn. You sure got it goin’ on, you know that?”

You don’t know why a guy like this would like you. He’s attractive and obviously smooth, could probably get any of these girls here to go out with him, but instead he’s hitting on you. You’re five feet tall and your black hair is perma-messy and you have blue eyes that are bright enough to defy the laws of logic, and you’re wearing glasses because you’re pretty much blind. Also, you’re at a Beatles concert and you don’t even _like_ The Beatles, which is weird enough all in itself. “If your only plan was to sing me a cheesy song about holding my hand, you need to work on your material before you try it on anyone else.”

“Oh yeah, I’ll tell you something,” he sings, and you shake your head. God, no. You’ve heard this song enough times to want to start crying when it starts playing. “I think you’ll understand.”

“Please stop.”

“I wanna hold your hand,” he repeats it exactly two times after that, and then his fingers are clasping your wrist and he’s pulling you from against the wall to his chest. “Oh please, say to me, you’ll let me be your man. And please, say to me, you’ll let me hold your hand.”

“Dave Strider who I just met three minutes ago, please stop this.”

“I’ll let me hold your hand,” you try to tell him “that doesn’t even make sense” but he keeps going and you swallow your protest because you can’t get it out. “I wanna hold your hand.”

“If I tell you I’ll go on a date with you, will you stop?”

He nods.

“Okay, fine, jesus. I will go on a date with you, Dave. Just, please, stop singing I Want to Hold Your Hand because I’ve heard it enough that when the first chords start I want to take Rose’s knitting needles from her and jam them through my eyes.”

He quirks an eyebrow. His fingers are still on your wrist. “Rose? Like Rose Lal-oh. _Oh_ , you’re the roommate John Egbert that she’s been trying to set me up with for months now. Fuck, I told her fate was gonna work on its own. I fucking _told_ her. Point one for Dave, no points for the witch Rose Lalonde. I got this shit.”

“Oh, you’re her brother. Right, got it. Can you let my wrist go now?”

“I wanna hold your hand,” he sings, and his fingers slide from your wrist to your hand and he locks them around yours. You have no choice but to do the same thing back (the little voice in your head that you’ve established by now is Rose tells you that you definitely have a choice, and you’re choosing to hold his hand, but you tell her to shut up because this is your moment with Dave Strider who you just met.)

“How about a kiss?” You ask in the most innocent voice you can muster, tilting your head to the side. He raises an eyebrow again, and you smile sweetly. He scoffs and leans in, pressing his lips swiftly to yours in the most chaste kiss you’ve ever had. “You call that a kiss?”

He nods. You scoff at him now, and grab him by his tie (it matches the rest of his outfit, and you hate that) and pull him down to your level. Well, mostly to your level, because you still have to stand on your tiptoes to meld your mouth to his. This kiss is a lot longer, a lot less chaste, more or less an “I promise you once we’re going steady we can totally do it” kiss.

You pull away first, because you’re starting to become a bit breathless and your lungs are starting to ache. He’s still holding your hand. You don’t really mind.

(He has his own car and he was at the concert by himself, but he lets you drive him home that night. Rose and Jade giggle at the fact that he’s holding your hand over the gear shaft until he falls asleep in the passenger seat, and then they’ve gone silent, too. When you stop at a redlight you glance back at them quickly, and they’re tangled together in the backseat, lips moving against each other’s languidly.

When you call out, “Finally!” Rose and Jade both hit you.)

**Author's Note:**

> this was going to be short, but we see how well that worked out.
> 
> i made this because i love the sixties. only slightly less than the eighties (expect me to write an 80stuck johndave, too. because i will.)
> 
> also the beatles. ugh, the beatles are great.
> 
> thank you for reading this! i might do a part two where they actually go on a date and figure out what music john really likes? yeah. maybe. if anyone wants a continuation.


End file.
